The Rebel

by Jennifer Bernard

  “As soon as possible. My boss is worried that word is getting out and someone might beat us to it. All those acres of pristine, unprotected land. That just doesn’t exist anymore.”

  Unprotected land. All those tall spruce, the ravines, the flitting birds. To Felicity, it was just “unprotected land.”

  “Don’t worry. I got this. Kai said he was staying for a month, and there’s only a week left. Trust me, okay?”

  She ended the call and headed for the shower, but all her happiness had leached out of her. If only she could tell Felicity and the Summit Group to shove their stupid job and do their own dirty work.

  It hadn’t sounded so bad at first. A little light espionage. Eyes and ears on the inside. Ocean’s 8.

  But now that she knew Max and his family, and Renata and all the other people who worked here, it felt like the sleaziest job in the world.

  This was for Birdie, she reminded herself, for the umpteenth time. And besides, selling the lodge was the best thing for the Rockwells. None of them wanted to run it. Especially Kai. So she had no reason to feel all this guilt.

  20

  The bird-watching group threw a big “thank you” party for Kai and the crew from Rocky Peak FD. Nicole chatted with a scientist from New Zealand and tried not to stare at Kai, who was surrounded by grateful birders.

  Max seemed thrilled with the whole event. He chomped on a cigar and told stories about the old days when rescuers used wooden toboggans and routinely lost fingers to frostbite. “That’s how it’s always been here. Everyone’s got each other’s backs,” he kept trumpeting. “That wilderness out there will kill you if you give it half a chance. Rocky Peak, the people here, sticking together, that’s the real deal. Good going, Kai.”

  He was in such a good mood that she stopped babysitting him and allowed herself to enjoy the party.

  Until a couple hours later, when she realized that somehow Max had acquired a bottle of Scotch, and was helping himself freely as he held court from his favorite leather chair.

  She’d never seen Max drink before—he was supposed to avoid hard alcohol. She hurried to his side as he lifted up the bottle for another pour. “Max, please. You’re not supposed to drink more than one glass a day, and it’s supposed to be wine, not the hard stuff.”

  “Haven’t had a drink in a week.”

  “That doesn’t matter.” She lifted the bottle out of his hand before he could fill his glass again.

  “Damn it, girl. You work for me, you forget that?”

  “This is me, working for you. Doing my job. And having such a fun time doing it, too.”

  “Sassy,” Max grumbled. But she’d gotten a smile out of him, which was the first step.

  From across the room, Kai glanced over at them, and shot her a secret smile that sent a thrill down to the soles of her feet.

  Then he sketched a box in the air.

  “What’s that?” Max asked sharply. “What’d he just do?”

  “Um, nothing. Just a…nothing.”

  “Kai! Come over here.” Max called to him. Kai said something to the group around him, then walked their direction. He looked sexy as sin in his hunter green sweater and evening scruff.

  “Nice party, huh?“ he said to them both. “I told them it wasn’t necessary, but they wanted it.”

  “What was that …” Max imitated the ‘box.’ “That sign you made? Looked fishy.”

  “It’s nothing, Max. Personal. Private.”

  “Personal and private? With Nicole? You keep your hands off my nurse now.”

  Holy shit, her patient was wasted.

  Kai’s smile dropped and a muscle flexed in his jaw. He glanced at the bottle of Scotch Nicole had set back on the table. “How much have you had to drink, Max?”

  “Not relevant,” he growled. “Nicole is a sweet, kind girl. You…you never met a…a rule you didn’t question. S’what Amanda said. Always said.”

  Nicole exchanged a look of alarm with Kai. This was her fault. She’d been distracted, ogling Kai, and let Max go overboard with the liquor.

  “Max. Pipe down,” Kai murmured. “This is a party.”

  Max went red and leaned forward in his big chair. “Pipe down,” he mimicked. “This is a party. Want a party? Invite the fishermen.”

  “What?” Kai froze, his head rearing back. “What did you just say?”

  Something had just happened, something big, but Nicole had no idea what. The two men stared each other down while she searched her mind for anything related to fishermen, and came up blank.

  “I said, where are the fishermen?” Max slurred the words ever so slightly.

  “What are you talking about?” Kai asked carefully.

  “You know what I’m talking about.”

  Nicole looked wildly from one to the other, totally out of her depth. Where was Gracie? Maybe she could interpret this scene. But Gracie must have ditched the party already, as she was nowhere to be seen. It was up to her to keep the peace here. “Guys,” she said. “Let’s all just take a breath—”

  But Kai lifted one hand to interrupt her. He kept his gaze pinned on Max.

  “Are we doing this?” he asked Max intensely. “Now? Right here?”

  “No,” Nicole tried again. “Whatever this is, no.”

  But Max raised his voice. “Curfew time!” he bellowed, the sound like a pressure wave through the room. “Don’t you birdwatchers like to get up at dawn? Get the hell out of here. Go. Nice party, time to go.”

  Whoa. Nicole had heard stories of “Mad Max”’s temper, but she’d never seen it in action before. White waves of hair rippled around his head as he sent a scowl blazing through the room, chasing their guests away.

  Within ten minutes, the restaurant was empty except for the three of them.

  Kai stood before his father, arms folded across his chest, staring him down. It felt like an electric storm was gathering between the two of them.

  “Should I leave?” Nicole asked tentatively, with a longing glance after the last of the birders.

  “No,” said Kai. “Max might need you. This could get ugly.”

  A splash of red appeared on Max’s cheeks above his bushy beard. He kept his gaze fixed on Kai, virtually ignoring Nicole.

  “She was leaving me,” he choked out. “Wasn’t she?”

  Nicole’s eyes went wide. “She” could only be one person. Amanda—Max’s wife.

  Kai nodded slowly. “Yes. She was.”

  “I wondered. All this time. It was that fisherman. And you knew.”

  “I knew. I’m sorry.” Kai’s tone was tight and even, as if he was using all his willpower to keep a grip on his emotions.

  “You could have stopped her.” Max’s words wrenched out of him in a kind of primal cry. “Why didn’t you stop her?”

  Kai’s face turned to stone. Nicole put a hand on his arm and felt the muscles tense like wrapped steel cables. She felt his titanic struggle for control.

  “This is a bad time for a fight,” she began.

  “Fight!” Max burst out. “He doesn’t fight. He runs!”

  “I didn’t run,” Kai said through clenched teeth. “You kicked me out.”

  “Because I couldn’t look at you. You could have stopped her.” Nicole heard the pain running through Max’s voice, under the anger and the alcohol. Did Kai hear it too?

  Kai bent down so his hands were on the arms of Max’s chair. Max shrank back, but Kai kept his voice perfectly even. “You don’t know what really happened, Max. You never wanted to know. You wanted to think you were right, that I was a punk ass kid who failed you.”

  Max grabbed the bottle of Scotch, while Kai took a step back. At first Nicole thought he was going to throw it, but he just poured himself another glass. She gnawed on her lip. She should stop him. This was bad, so bad. But how was she supposed to step between these two forceful men, both vibrating from sheer intensity? It would be like trying to stop a storm.

  Max tipped the glass to his lips and took a swallow, as
if he was bracing for something terrible. “Tell me then. Tell me, son. Tell me what happened.”

  Kai’s jaw worked and his eyes went hooded as he stared down at his father. “Mom asked me to drive with her into town, and as soon as we were past the driveway she told me she was leaving. She mentioned a fisherman staying in Rocky Peak. I got upset and yelled at her. I told her she shouldn’t go, that we needed her, all of us kids. How could she just leave us, she was our mother! She started crying. I wanted her to pull over so we could talk about it more. I kept saying, ‘pull over, pull over. Just for a minute.’ But she wouldn’t.”

  Max made a choking sound. Alarmed, Nicole knelt next to him to feel his pulse. It was racing, but still strong. “What else?” he managed.

  “She said she was tired of Rocky Peak, tired of the mountains. She wanted to go to California, then send for us kids. I kept telling her that was nuts. We wanted to stay where we were. We wanted to stay here.”

  Max passed a hand over his eyes. “And then?”

  Kai glanced at Nicole, a look of warning, and maybe a little embarrassment. She had no business being part of such an intimate moment between a father and son, but she was fascinated anyway. They were both so powerful, so magnetic, each in their own way. It was like watching two goliaths face each other down.

  Kai shoved his hand through his hair. “Then there was someone in the road.”

  Max’s head whipped up. “What?”

  “He was on the side of the road, but he’d taken a few steps in, like he was trying to get our attention. He was waving. I don’t know who it was, but I thought maybe it was the fisherman she was meeting. Mom swung the wheel really hard to avoid him. Much harder than she had to, and all of a sudden we were headed for a tree.”

  Kai clasped his hands behind his neck and turned away, hiding his face behind the screen of his bent elbows.

  “I didn’t tell the police any of that,” came his choked voice. “I didn’t tell anyone she was leaving. No one, not Griff and the others, not you. But you knew anyway, all this time.”

  Nicole longed to go to him, to offer whatever comfort he would accept, but her primary concern was Max. His shoulders were hunched, his fists clenched, his big body shaking.

  The moment spun out into silence. Max stared at the floor, as if he was a million miles away—or maybe seventeen years ago, on a dark mountain road.

  “I thought—I was afraid—” He broke off.

  “What, Dad? What were you afraid of?”

  “I thought…you might blame me. You looked at me different after it happened. Scared the living hell out of me.”

  Kai lowered himself into a crouch next to his father, so Max would meet his eyes. “Maybe I did. But I blamed myself too, because I couldn’t make her listen.”

  “Make Amanda listen?” Max snorted as if the thought was absurd.

  They were both quiet for a moment. Nicole caught Max eyeing the bottle again, and moved it out of his reach.

  “That’s why you kicked me out,” said Kai. “That’s why we kept fighting.”

  “I didn’t kick you out. You left.”

  Kai rose to his feet and let out a snort. “Are we back to that again? Yeah, I left. Because you wanted me out. Because we couldn’t say a word to each other without blowing up. Own up to it, Dad. It’s okay. I get it. I got it then, too.”

  Max’s beard moved back and forth as his mouth worked. Nicole fought the urge to rush in with a visualization, something with a soothing waterfall or a tranquil lake.

  “I’m sorry I kicked you out,” he muttered.

  Kai’s gaze flew to meet Nicole’s. He looked astonished, as if he wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “Did you just—”

  “Yes. And don’t make me repeat it,” Max snapped. “Wore me out the first time. Shit.”

  Nicole bit her lip to hold back the laugh that wanted to spill out. The release from the tension of the past few minutes was tremendous.

  “What are you snickering at, girl?” Max grumbled.

  “Oh, I was just thinking about that study about the healing power of an apology.”

  “Bunch of bull crap. I don’t feel any better at all.”

  “Blame the Scotch for that, not the apology.” Nicole retrieved his cane from its resting spot in the corner. “How about I help you to your room? I think that’s enough drama for one night.”

  Max nodded and yawned widely. “Why’d you let me have all that liquor? Oughta know better. That’s your job, to keep me out of trouble.”

  Over his head, Nicole exchanged a glance with Kai. He still looked shell-shocked. With her entire heart, she wanted to go to him—comfort him, support him, embrace him. But her duty to Max came first.

  She mouthed, “see you later,” at Kai. Once again, Max caught it as he was getting to his feet.

  “What was that?” Max asked her.

  “What was what?”

  “What did you say to Kai?”

  “Nothing much.”

  “I saw your mouth move. More secrets? Why all the secrets all of a sudden?”

  She took his arm while he got his cane under him. “Nothing important. I was just…well, it was something about antlers, if you want to know the truth.”

  “Antlers? What is wrong with you, girl?”

  She took a peek at Kai and saw his smile flash. Message received.

  21

  Nicole tumbled into his arms as soon as he opened the door to her later that night.

  “Are you okay?” She actually felt him all over, as if that painful conversation with his father had left physical bruises on his body. It had been tough, no doubt about it. But it had also lifted a huge weight off his shoulders. All those years, protecting his siblings and his father from the truth had taken a toll.

  “I’m not sure. I could probably use a comprehensive evaluation from a professional.”

  “That’s what I’m here for. I’m the consummate professional.”

  “Consummate? I like the sound of that.”

  He lifted her up and wrapped her legs around him. The warmth of her body, the secret luscious heat of her, pressed against his cock. Exactly how he’d been fantasizing all day.

  At least he had been, until that crazy scene with Max had chased all other thoughts away. Since then, he’d been in his little guesthouse, pacing the floor and wondering what came next. Should he tell the rest of his siblings that Mom had been trying to leave them? Did they have a right to know?

  Nicole tilted her head back to look at him. She was wearing a clinging silvery turtleneck that he’d wanted to run his hands under all night long. “Seriously. How are you? I barely took a breath the entire time you and Max were talking.”

  Since she was determined to be serious, he walked her over to the seating area in the guesthouse. With its high peaked roof and rafters, and its panoramic view of the back ridge, it suited him perfectly. Gracie had offered it to him, after he balked at moving into his old bedroom.

  He lowered onto the couch, Nicole still in his arms, so she was now straddling his lap. “That? That was nothing. Not a single stick of broken furniture. No unforgivable insults. In Rockwell terms, that was practically a peace talk.”

  She sat on his lap and splayed her hand across his chest. “That’s a pretty big secret you were keeping.”

  “Yeah, it was. It took a lot of fucking willpower. Then it turned out he knew the whole time—or suspected. Pretty wild. Honestly, I probably deserve some kind of medal for not throwing it at Dad earlier.”

  “You do,” she said sincerely. “You actually do.”

  “No, I don’t. But that’s one reason I left. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to keep my mouth shut if he kept riding me. All this time, I was trying to protect him…” He shook his head to chase away all the bad emotions that had haunted him ever since. Guilt. Doubt. Anger.

  “You know, you’re not at all what I used to think,” she said slowly. “You’re not an arrogant hothead.”

  He laughed. “Listen to that.
A compliment, almost.”

  She gave him that mischievous smile he loved as she traced her hands along his ribs. “I can think of a few other compliments, just off the top of my head. But I wouldn’t want you to get all puffed up.”

  He looped his arms around her waist and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Thank you for being there. It helped, oh mighty Max-Whisperer. From your perspective, did he handle it okay?”

  She cocked her head, screwing up her face in a whimsical way that made him want to kiss her senseless. “I really think he did. It’s always hard to tell with him, but his blood pressure stayed stable and his color was good. Pulse normal.”

  He laughed and ran his hands up her thighs, then back down, appreciating the sleek firmness of her legs. “Nurse Nicole, you turn me on.”

  She winked at him. “You should see me in my scrubs.”

  “Sign me up.” His cock twitched at the vision forming in his mind. “Do I have to develop a heart condition to get a shot at that?”

  She swatted him lightly on the chest. “You shouldn’t joke about heart conditions. That’s morbid.”

  “Have you met my family yet? Us Rockwells love nothing more than to laugh our asses off at something completely inappropriate. It’s a survival mechanism.”

  “You know, that definitely explains a few things. Like the undead deer.”

  “My mother had a dark sense of humor. On my fourteenth birthday she made me a zombie cake, it was supposed to look like brains, with bloody icing and two ears on either side. Luckily she wasn’t a very good baker, so it looked just like every other cake she made, kind of messy and lopsided.”

  He drew in a breath, bracing for the emotion that usually struck him when he thought of his mother. But it didn’t come—maybe because the sexy woman on his lap was so distracting.

  “She sounds like my kind of woman,” Nicole said lightly. “I can’t bake for shit either. I even ruined brownies once. I used a cup of baking soda instead of a tablespoon, and they practically blew up in the oven. Birdie literally cried when she saw them. Actual tears running down her face.”